Where the idea came from: A padlocked warehouse containing Harris County's oldest records. The room was un-airconditioned and unsafe. Researching an article about legal history, Davidson came upon an envelope containing a lawsuit brought by William Marsh Rice, the founder of Rice University, in 1853. The yellowed pleadings disintegrated into confetti in his hands.

How it grew: Davidson dumped the confetti on County Clerk Charles Bacarisse's desk. "There are 30,000 files like this," Davidson told Bacarisse. After much teamwork, in 2006, the Harris County Historical Document Room was opened to the public. The old papers are now stored in an air-conditioned and secure place.

Idea in action: Davidson describes the old legal files that he has found as "jaw-dropping." These include:

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Gray Matters wonders what punishment awaits the clerk who discarded John Lennon's sketches. We imagine there's no heaven.

• An 1837 document that attests to the founding of the Harris County judicial system. It's written in quill pen and signed by Sam Houston and Stephen F. Austin.

• A lawsuit between Sam Houston and Mirabeau B. Lamar. Davidson estimates that there are 300 biographies written about the two men, and none mentions the suit.

• A 1954 newspaper article about the first woman in Texas to serve on a jury.

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His favorite find: The documents involving a freed woman named Emeline; Peter Gray, the founder of the law firm Baker Botts; and a man claiming ownership of Emeline. With the help of Gray, Emeline sued for her freedom and won.

"I picked up the box containing the Emeline suit because it was one of the thickest boxes. I thought it either involved a lot of money or an important principle," Davidson says. "I was right. The lawsuit was about freedom."

Documents lost: All original records related to Barbara Jordan's legal career and -- believe it or not -- 17 sketches by John Lennon. In the early 1980s, a county clerk ordered that some older documents be shredded.

The bottom line: Houston Grand Opera is planning a song series about Emmeline in 2015. Without Davidson's help, we would never know about the amazing life of this woman of color -- or about the other stories that lurk in the courthouse files.